A Pair of New Shoes with Matching Laces
by emmy313
Summary: All of Jack's clothes were too small. His mother, who had always been able to make hand-me-downs look like new, had been dead for 1 year, 2 weeks, and 4 days. Eight-year-old Jack and his father, Pat, are stumbling along the best they can. Then Pat comes home with an unexpected gift. *Storyteller Universe*


***** A NYC construction worker like Pat would've made about $9-10 per week in 1890-about $250 in today's money.

 **February 1891 -** Jack is 8 ½

All of Jack's clothes were too small. His mother, who had always been able to make hand-me-downs look like new, had been dead for 1 year, 2 weeks, and 4 days.

He was sitting on the floor by the stove trying to draw the perfect horse when his father came home. Jack leapt up.

"Hey, lad." Pat said. He sank into a chair and untied his work boots. "How are ya? Ya go to school today?"

"Nah." Jack said. He picked up the scrap of newspaper he'd been drawing on. "Too snowy. I didn't want my feet to get wet."

Patrick sighed. "Bring me ya boots and your mama's sewing things. I'll work on them again." Jack handed him his too-small shoes. The brown leather was worn thin with holes where his big toes peaked through. The soles were long gone; the cardboard they'd replaced them with was already torn and swollen with moisture. "Let's try something else this time." Pat said. He rummaged around in Evelyn's sewing basket for a scrap of thick canvas.

Jack sat down on the floor to watch. Pat traced both of the shoes, then used his pocket knife to cut out the fabric. Patrick had laid bricks since he was a teenager; shoe repair wasn't his speciality. His thick, calloused hands fumbled to thread the needle, then he roughly stitched the white patches over the biggest holes. Neither of them spoke.

The boots were ugly. The leather was all discolored and worn out, and the patches didn't match. Jack couldn't wait until summer when he didn't have to wear shoes. But that was a long way off.

"They ain't handsome," Pat said. "But they'll keep your feet dry. Try them on."

Jack squeezed his feet into the boots. His toes poked through the front. "They hurt!" He cried. "They're too tight."

"They'll be fine." Patrick said. "Leather stretches. I'll try to get ya some more in a few weeks."

"No!"

Pat stood up. "I'm doing my damn best here, kid!"

Jack wrestled the shoes off his feet and threw them under the kitchen table. Tears pushed at his eyes. "I hate this!" He yelled. "I hate this _stupid_ new apartment and I hate these shoes and I hate it and-"

"Stop it!" Pat jabbed his finger in Jack's face. "Stop it this minute! Ya know, there was _five_ of us kids and my ma and my da in one blasted room smaller than this. I was same age as you when we left Dublin, and we didn't complain for a damn minute!" He ran a hand down his face. "Lord, Jack. You think I don't know we're drowning?" His father's voice was thick.

Tears rolled down Jack's cheeks. Patrick swallowed hard. "I-I-I'm sorry." Jack got out.

"Get ya things off the floor." Patrick said. "I'll make us supper."

When Jack was littler, his mother would have supper ready every night when Pat got home. Jack and his little sisters would climb their father like a tree; he was tall, lean, and indestructible, strong from years of construction work. Pat would have a glass of whiskey after dinner. Then he'd hold Jack on one knee and Ciara on the other as they prayed: _Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. His angels watch me through the night and wake me in the morning light._ As soon as they said amen, Pat would kiss his wife and go straight to bed.

Then right after Christmas last year, the flu swept through their apartment complex. Jack and Pat got better. His mother, Evelyn, and six-year-old Ciara didn't. Since their double funeral, Patrick was thinner and quieter. Grief made its home deep in their joints and rib cages.

Now, Jack and his father lived in a smaller, cheaper apartment. They both knew how to cook well enough to keep from starving. Patrick silently fried bacon and potatoes. Jack dried his eyes with his sleeve, tucked his paper and pencil under his pillow, then stood on a chair to get the plates from the cabinet without being asked. Pat had three whiskeys with dinner, maybe four. Jack knew other people's father's sometimes got mean when they drank, but Pat just acted like he was swimming through fog.

Jack went to school the next day just because he was sick of being home alone. His teacher looked like a mean old owl, and he was always in trouble for reading too slow, and for drawing instead of working. The walk was about a mile. He trudged home in the cold, clear sunshine, feet aching in his too small shoes.

Sunset came and went, but Pat didn't come home. Jack lit the oil lamp and doodled on a scrap of newspaper to try to distract himself from the dread that filled him like a balloon. _He's hammered straight through his arm-no. He's freezing to death-no. He got hit by a cart crossing the street-no. No. He-no._

The front door creaked open. "Hey, lad!" Pat called. He was carrying something, but Jack couldn't tell what.

"Where were you?" Jack demanded.

Patrick dropped his bundles on the kitchen table. "Ah, sorry to worry ya." He said. "But look at what I got!"

"Where...where did you go?" Jack asked. He'd never seen so many packages in one place, never on Christmas or his birthday, not even at the post office. There were three brown paper packages tied up with twine.

"Open it up!" Pat prompted. He cut through the twine with his knife.

Jack picked up a pair of dark grey woolen pants. They were brand new: sturdy, close, perfect machine stitches, no patches on the knees, no tweaking and taking in to make them fit. His clothes had almost always been hand-me-downs from the neighbor boys.

"Wow!" Jack breathed. "Da, did ya win a hundred bucks?" He stripped off his old pants right there and pulled the new ones on.

"How do they fit?" Pat asked.

Jack hugged him around the waist and pressed his face into his dad's chest. "Perfect."

Pat laughed and kissed the top of his head. "Ya look handsome, kid. Help me open the rest."

The next package had some suspenders for Pat and two linen shirts for Jack . He put one on and rolled up the sleeves.

Jack hopped from foot to foot. "I feel like a prince." he said. "Did ya find a pot of gold like...like in Mama's stories?" He knew he was too old to really believe in the Irish superstitions but how else could his father afford all these things? This was four or five dollars worth of clothes.

Pat tore open the last package and handed Jack a pair of boots. New boots. They were brown canvas with matching laces.

Jack plopped down on the floor and pulled them on. "Da, these are amazing."

"I hope they ain't too big." Pat said. He bent down to tie them, even though Jack could tie his own shoes. "We'll put some paper in them if they is. I wanted ya to grow into them."

He looked up into his father's face. Jack had his mother's round face and dark hair, but his wide, green eyes were just like Patrick's. "They're perfect." Jack said. He wiggled his toes and giggled. "Thank you."

Pat's back and knees cracked as he stood up and he grunted. "I'm glad ya like 'em."

Jack hugged himself in pleasure. "Man, we're living large. Did someone give ya these clothes or something?" he asked. "It ain't pay-day, right?"

Whiskey streamed into Pat's glass. He took a long sip. "Did ya know it's ya mama's birthday?" He asked. He leaned against the table. "She would've been 30 today."

"I miss her."

"I know, lad." Pat took another drink. "Me too."

"Maybe she sent us a guardian angel today." Jack said, smiling. "That'd be like her, don't ya think?"

Jack thought his father would laugh at that, or at least smile, but he put his glass down. "I gotta be honest with ya, Jack. Blasted Catholic guilt." He licked his lips. "Sometimes ya gotta do things ya ain't proud of to get what ya need."

"What?"

"I didn't find a pot of gold. I stole from an honest fella. I've been saving for ya some nice clothes, really I have. But...with everything, Jack, you know how damn tight it's all been." Jack nodded. Pat rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Anyways, my friend, someone I work with, left his jacket on a bench. We was all inside taking a break from the wind, just for a minute, ya know. And he took his jacket off, and I happened to rest my hand on it and I felt some coins. Swear to ya, kid, he had nearly two dollars-nickels and dimes and a half-dolla-just loose in his jacket pocket."

"That's a lotta money."

Pat sat down at the table across and took another sip. "Yeah, it is. And I shouldna done it. But ain't nobody was around."

"Nobody saw you?" Jack asked, wide eyed.

"No."

Jack was almost too tall to sit in his father's lap, but he scampered from the floor and climbed on top of him anyways. "Maybe...Maybe your friend knew wes needed it more. Maybe God knows we need it more. It don't count if ya didn't get caught, right?"

Pat sighed and kissed Jack's head. "I ain't been fair to ya, kid. It's been a dang lousy year, and I ain't making it better for us."

Jack hugged him around the neck. "Thanks for everything."

xxx

This idea has been rattling around in my head for months and I've just now got it on paper. (Inspired by this interaction between Jack and Davey: "Our father taught us not to lie."  
"Yeah, well, mine taught me not to starve! So I guess we both got an education.")

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!


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